Big demonstration: “Long live the Shah” – thousands demonstrate in Frankfurt

Frankfurt/Main. Around 20,000 Iranians demonstrated in Frankfurt for an open and free society in their home country and against the mullah government in Tehran. They celebrated the opposition politician Reza Pahlavi, who had previously accepted the Freedom Prize from the FDP-affiliated Friedrich Naumann Foundation in the Paulskirche on behalf of the Iranian people.

According to police information, around 9,000 people marched peacefully through the city center. According to the police, a total of around 20,000 supporters of the Shah's son gathered at the subsequent large-scale rally in Ostpark.

That was significantly fewer than the 30,000 people for whom the rally had been registered. The meetings were largely peaceful and without major incidents until the afternoon.

A man was arrested near the Konstabler Wache in the area surrounding the demonstration. There was a reference to a live stream in which he was said to have announced crimes, the police said. According to the police, only a few people took part in a counter-demonstration against Pahlavi. The police spoke of around 20 participants who had gathered at the Roßmarkt in the early afternoon.

The demonstrators celebrated the 66-year-old at the large rally with chants of “Long live the Shah.” Many participants carried the former Iranian national flag with a lion in the middle from the time of the Shah. Others showed pictures of Pahlavi with the words “Shah” written on them.

Pahlavi and his wife showed themselves to their cheering supporters behind a transparent window on the stage. A demonstrator said on the sidelines of the rally: “We have hope that Iran will be free.” They don't want a pure monarchy, but rather “do it like Europe”.

After the end of Pahlavi's speech, which he gave mainly in Persian, the first demonstrators left the site. There were chants: “Thank you, police.”

Pahlavi is a son of the Shah who was overthrown in 1979 and lives in exile in the USA. He has put himself in play as an interim leader if the ruling government in Tehran were to fall. He is also viewed critically by many, simply because of the country's monarchist past under his autocratic father.

Pahlavi announced at the ceremony in Frankfurt's Paulskirche that he would one day place the award in the hands of the Iranian people - "not on foreign soil, but in our capital Tehran." He sees his role as a bridge builder. “The Islamic Republic is not the legitimate government of Iran.” The largely Iranian audience in the Paulskirche, the symbol of German democracy, repeatedly drowned out the ceremony with chants: “Long live Shah, long live Iran!”

At the ceremony, FDP MEP Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann emphasized that Pahlavi had always said that the Iranian people themselves decided on their future. Not everyone agreed with the awarding of the prize to the Shah's son. “Then you always know that you are on the right track.”